Furikawari: Exchanging Territories
by Starbrigid
Summary: 30 kisses themes, AkiHika happy, angsty, psych, loose timeline. for all my insecurities:all i'm lacking:every mistake:every loss:everything i can never be:because you’re here:always been you:two parts:white and black:of a whole
1. Our Adventure

30 kisses themes

Starbrigid

_1. look over here_

Akira was going to win this match. He narrowed his eyes at his opponent, making the man shift uneasily. The slam of his white stone against the board just made the 4-dan twitch, but one of the reporters nearby jumped. Soon, they both knew, if Akira played his proverbial cards right, there would be no way to save the black cluster in the center. Akira waited patiently, his face as impenetrable as Ogata's famous old poker face. He could afford to be polite, as he always was, except with- well, Shindou didn't count.

"He's so much like his father," he heard one of the women whisper. "Such a dragon. If I was Minamoto-san, I'd have crawled under the table!"

"Idiot," another reporter hissed back. "Touya-san can hear you, you know! He's looking right at you. This is an important match. Idiot."

Akira liked playing in this particular room. The white and blue Chinese drapings made him comfortable there. His mother's China was similar to the cup they'd given him his green tea in. He inhaled the stream from it slowly and deeply, listening for a black stone's placement and at least hearing it. He responded within a second, then leaned back to sip the top off the hot liquid. It slightly burned his tongue. From the look on Minamoto-san's face, the man had realized that he'd been burned as well.

Another voice came to Akira's attention, coming from farther away but emitting more loudly from its source. The voice was young, but definitely male, callous, insensitive to the proceedings inside. He recognized that voice, the loudest, as Shindou's, and the ones that rose to accompany it were probably friends of Shindou's. Shindou had lots of friends.

The opponent played. Akira's hand plunged into his container of stones, and his fingers clenched around them clumsily. Shindou and the others had stopped to talk there for some reason, but they didn't sound like they were coming in. Shindou wasn't here to see him. Shindou probably didn't even know he was there. Shindou was an idiot, talking so loudly in front of a room where there was a match going on.

Akira's next move was more aggressive than he'd originally planned. This was the critical point in the battle, but-

"So," he heard Shindou say, voice striking through the paper doors to reach Akira clearly, "My mom's talking about remodeling my room. I don't care what she does. I just hope she leaves my go stuff alone. She really freaked out when I bought all those weird posters..."

Akira tried to calm his breathing, but found it difficult to do so. Minamoto was fidgeting, and pushed his stone too far before he managed to shove it back to the place he'd originally intended. Why didn't anyone go tell Shindou to be quiet? "Waya," Shindou was laughing, snorting in a way unbefitting anyone's rival, much less Akira's, which he wasn't, anyway. "Waya, that is," (snort) "so, not funny!"

Akira's concentration was shot. He fumbled in his container again, fingers feeling greasy against their simple iciness, and moved to respond. His arm brushed his tea-cup and knocked the saucer off the table. It shattered brilliantly, making the female reporter shriek.

"Waya, you suck and you know it," Shindou was laughing, probably shoving the boy with his elbow slyly as he said it, eyes narrowed not predatorily but conspiratorially, go stones in his pocket jingling. If black was Shindou-

The woman, who'd ran over to clean up the rough shards of china, let out another shriek upon seeing where the stone had been placed. Akira shifted on his knees, running a sweaty hand through the sweaty roots of his long hair and closing his eyes. The black cluster was dead. Behind his eyes was burgundy-orange, and if he squeezed them tighter, mahogany-violet.

"He's so much like his father," the other reporter said shakily. Minamoto let a small whimper escape his hairy lips. His mustache quivered, and he started to scratch it. Akira didn't move.

The door opened, and Shindou Hikaru poked his head in. Akira just heard the squeak of the plastic at the bottom scraping against the smooth wood tiles. He tried to pass off this feeling as pride from making a good play. Footsteps, soft on the off-white carpet, made impressions on it with each movement.

"Hey," Shindou said, "What's going on?"

Akira breathed out very slowly, then very deliberately ignored the question.

_2. news, letter_

"Hey, Hikaru, what are you doing? Come on, Hikaru, let's play a game!"

Hikaru ignored Sai and bent further down over his desk, red mechanical pencil scratching furiously away at a piece of notebook paper. As the sound of Sai's whining reached a particularly high frequency, Hikaru's pencil was pushed too hard, and the narrow point stabbed the paper open. Hikaru muttered something, pressed the eraser a few times, and kept writing.

Mechanical pencils scared Sai. He leaned in closer, but not too much closer, to study the baffling apparatus his desired go partner was currently occupied in utilizing. He tried to poke it, but Hikaru dodged away. "Come on, can't you see I'm trying to do something?"

"Hi-ka-_ru_!" Sai bellowed, and Hikaru let go of the pencil to cover his ears, cringing. "I want to play go now! Hey, what are you doing with those kifu?"

"I'm sending them," Hikaru said. "It's none of your business, Sai."

"It is when it involves go!" Sai squealed, and managed to sneak a look at the top of the paper. "Korea-"

Hikaru pulled the letter away and turned it over, reddening. "Sai! Down!"

"Ah?" Sai blinked. "Am I a doh? Neh, are you writing to a go player there?"

"Yeah," Hikaru admitted, leaning back in his chair and sighing. "Touya's there, so..."

"He'll find out that you passed the pro exam as soon as he gets back," Sai reminded Hikaru.

"I know," Hikaru said impatiently. "But I want him to know as soon as possible!"

"Don't brag too much," Sai said.

"Hey, you're the one who taught me my go," Hikaru shot back. "I mean, don't you think it's pretty cool?"

"Of course!" Sai agreed hastily, then faltered. "Cool is a good thing, right?"

"Yeah," Hikaru said. "We'll play in a second, okay? I'm almost done."

"We'd better get ready to start fighting him," Sai smiled. "He'll be merciless, to us more than anyone."

"Well," Hikaru said, "That's why I'm telling him to get off his ass and prepare himself!"

"I wonder what Touya's doing right now," Sai mused, voice softening.

Hikaru wrote a few final words, then folded the letter up, satisfied. He pushed it into an enveloped, one he'd drawn a Shuusaku kifu on, and licked the top shut. "Maybe he's playing. You know, kneeling all quiet, but with his eyes burning out all fiery and vicious and green."

"His eyes are green?" Sai repeated dubiously.

"What?" Hikaru blinked. "Oh, yeah, really green."

"You noticed?" Sai asked, and coughed.

"Huh?" said Hikaru. "Yeah, sure. Of course."

"What would he be doing if he didn't have a match?" Sai wondered, propping his chin up on his hands. Hikaru was seized by the inescapable but thoroughly impossible desire to steal the ghost's tall black hat.

"Hmm," Hikaru mused, then laughed. "I bet he's practicing go! If I ever get as obsessed as he is, please just shoot me and end my misery."

"You could do to be more dedicated!" Sai bawled suddenly, making Hikaru backpedal again. "See! Hikaru, if he's playing go, I want to be, too!"

Hikaru pictured Touya's sharp face buried in a well-worn book of problems, the boy solving them in his head for practice. It was night in Korea, about 8:00, he guessed, or maybe nine something. The games would be done, would have been finished for a while, so Touya would have had dinner already, too. He'd be back in his hotel room, probably a beautiful, traditional one. Maybe there would be a garden and a carp pond outside his delicate sliding doors, paper left ajar to let a cool wind play with Touya's hair, colored the same moonlight-blue-black of the dark Seoul night sky.

His suitcase would probably still be waiting to be unpacked, so he'd be stretched across the sparse futon as he read, his baggage taking up the chair. According to the Korean weather website, there was a cool front blowing through the capital tonight, so Touya in his thin sleeping yukata would be wrapped in a blanket, the soft, thick wool pulled up to his chin, brushing pink-flushed lips that whispered numbers, half-smiling. He'd be pushing a strand of hair out of his eyes, otherwise that girlish hair of his wouldn't let him see what he was reading. Hikaru looked down at his own hands and imagined them longer and whiter, but the go calluses would be the same. He remember how Touya had grabbed his hand to look for them before their second came. He hadn't had any calluses then, but he could see them clearly now, as if Touya had carved them into his fingertips.

"Hikaru! Pay attention! You're playing really bad today, pro-san!"

The letter went like this,

"Touya,

Here are the kifu of my examination matches. I'm a professional now, like you, and I hope to become a 2-dan, soon, like you are. I'm catching up.

Good luck in your games. You had better not let anyone beat you but me!

Oh, and hurry up, will you? I want to see you."

He didn't sign it, because he didn't need to.

_3. jolt!_

Shindou's hands were shaking, but he kept his voice admirably even as he bowed his head and said, "I resign."

Akira didn't thank him for the game. It had been an awful game. Akira had played horribly. To think that Shindou had gotten so close to beating him- He probably shouldn't have even come today, his mother certainly hadn't thought he was well enough to play at his best. Neither had Father, for that matter. But when Akira had become a pro, he'd become an adult, so it had been his decision, and that was what he'd chosen. He would have sooner died than not faced Shindou. He knew thinking that way was pathetically juvenile and overdramatic, but he really felt that way. His mind was racing. To think that, even if it had been a bad day, Shindou had gotten so close to beating him- to think that Shindou had changed so much- to think, that in a few moves, he'd seen that strength he'd seen the first two times he played Shindou, again-

"Hey, Touya!" Shindou was leaning across the go board, eyes somehow looking very bright to Akira's. "So what do you think? I've improved, haven't I?"

Shindou made him sick. His stomach felt like it was rolling around in his torso, and Shindou's excited smile made it worse. To think that, even if it might have been a bad day, Shindou had gotten so close to beating him-

"Aw, Touya," Shindou wheedled. "Come on, just a word of praise! You don't need to be such a tight-ass all the time! I've been working so hard!"

Akira glared at him, trying to make Shindou feel all the horrible dark seething misery and nausea and self-hate that were swimming around inside him right then. Shindou shrank back. Apparently he'd gotten the gist of it.

"Touya?" Shindou whispered. "Why are you looking at me like that?"

Akira's hand made its way to his head; he had a headache. He hadn't had time to get any inoculations before his games in Korea. Did Japanese people need inoculations before going to Korea? In any rate, he'd picked this bug up in Korea. He hated Korea. He hated his go. He hated his stupid worthless self. It was a hot day, and hotter inside the go salon; he reached for the pitcher of ice water at the side of the table, and so did Shindou. Their hands brushed, and Shindou pulled back quickly.

"S-sorry," Shindou said quickly.

Akira froze. He'd felt a shock rush through him at the contact, a jolt of electricity that went straight to his head. He turned and stared at Shindou, fingers twitching. Shindou frowned.

"T-touya, are you okay? You look kinda red. Do you have a fever?" Shindou reached up, and, just the way Shindou's father probably did to him, pressed his palm against Touya's forehead. He felt cool and solid against Touya's skin.

Jolt.

"I think," Akira said. "I'm alright, but I should be going. Thank you for the game, Shindou."

He got to his feet and walked into the bathroom. He was sweating. He reached up, touched his forehead. He was burning up. He leaned down and splashed cold water across his face. His stomach careened violently, and his face fell into the still-running stream of water as his body lurched forward. He felt the water forced down onto his face, and felt an acidic tightness wrench around his throat. He wanted to cry.

"Hey, Touya," Shindou said, walking in behind Akira. "Are you really okay?" Akira could feel Shindou's presence lingering behind his back, and his throat clenched.

Akira turned, looked at Shindou, felt droplets of water drip down his skin. "Just got a little hot in there."

Shindou laughed. "Yeah, I know what you mean. Well, see you!"

Akira leaned against the wall, and shakily, let his mouth open into a little smile. He could already taste the chicken soup and rice his mother would make him when he got home.

_4. our distance and that person_

"Sai," Hikaru asked, "Do you think Touya and I are friends?"

Sai turned from where he'd been lounging to stare at Hikaru. "Friends?"

"Yeah, friends," Hikaru said. "What, is that so weird to imagine?"

"Well," Sai said. "You are rivals."

"Does that mean we can't be friends?" Hikaru asked.

Sai shrugged. "Do you want to be?"

Hikaru pressed a button, and an orange soda tumbled out of the vending machine. He walked over to the bench where only he could see Sai reclined upon and waited for the ghost to get up so they could continue walking home.

"Yeah," Hikaru said, after a second. "I mean, he's not like my other friends, but I kinda want to get to know him better."

"You just aren't interested in his go?" Sai asked idly, looking up to stare at a billboard.

"I-" Hikaru reddened. "What do you mean? I mean, he _is _his go, isn't he?"

Sai turned to stare at Hikaru. "I-" Hikaru muttered. "Did that sound really stupid?"

"No," Sai said. "You're right. Each person's go comes from somewhere, after all. You can see who they are in it."

"I guess you don't think we're friends?" Hikaru asked.

Sai sighed. "Hikaru-"

"I know, I know," Hikaru muttered. "He hates my guts, doesn't he?"

"I'm saying," Sai said, "You figure it out. People are staring."

Hikaru hated how he was the only one who could see Sai. All he did was have a conversation with the guy, and everybody around ended up looking like they thought he was a psycho. "I wonder," Hikaru said, "If Touya and I can ever be friends, while he doesn't know about you."

"Well," Sai said, "I won't always be putting that distance between you."

"Eh?" said Hikaru. "What, are we gonna tell him someday?"

"Hikaru, why is that girl unclothed?"

"It's a billboard, Sai, she's advertising something..."

"It's not right! You should take it down, Hikaru!"

"Sai, that's not the kind of thing you can just do in any case..."

5. _ano sa... (hey, you know...)_

"Hey, you know... Touya?"

Akira turned, surprised to hear Shindou speaking to him, much less so civilly, after so losing their game. Yeah, Shindou was still _mada mada dane, _and they both knew it. "What is it, Shindou?" he asked, keeping his voice cool and stingingly distant. He wanted Shindou to feel disappointed. He pictured Shindou kneeling at his feet and begging for forgiveness from him. Akira smiled pleasantly. It was a wonderful image.

Shindou, oblivious to Akira's rather (supposedly) uncharacteristic thoughts, finished sweeping his black stones up and asked, "Touya? Did you know this salon's going on a trip to the beach?"

Akira blinked and searched his memory. He hadn't. He hoped that didn't mean the salon would be closed. Shindou probably realized that they would need to relocate that day's practice game. Good, that was unusually smart forethought on Shindou's part. He rewarded the boy with a small, brief half-smile. "No, I didn't."

"Oh, that's weird," Shindou said, leaning back in his chair. Akira wished he'd hurry up so they could talk about the game. He was dying to educate Shindou on his embarrassing sloppiness in the end game. "So are you going?" Shindou finished.

Akira's stomach took a nice big fist to it. He hadn't been expecting anything like that. "You're going?" he asked incredulously, though that wasn't what he was surprised about.

"Well," Shindou said, rubbing his head rather sheepishly, "That is, if you are."

"I- excuse me?" Akira snapped.

Shindou stared at Akira, who was all sharp and wound-up again, crisp razor edges and the swish of almost bluish hair angled across near luminescent eyes. It made him suddenly nervous. "Well," Shindou laughed, pushing himself back up, "It's not like I wanna go with a bunch of old geezers! You're the only guy even close to my age."

"I thought I'm supposed to be your rival," Akira pointed out.

"Hey," said Shindou, "all the more reason! Think of how many games we can play!" He delivered that last line knowingly, using his experience with Sai and go obsession, and wished he had the right to yank on the end of Akira's hair. Akira's mouth widened, the expression on his face changing to pure longing. "I love the beach," said Shindou. "Don't you?"

"Shindou," Akira said quietly, "I haven't been to the beach since I was four years old."

Shindou laughed, and his voice took on a teasing tone. "Are you saying you don't know how to swim?"

"Of course I can swim," Akira said defensively. He stared at his rival helplessly. "Shindou-"

"Please?" Shindou said, and Akira gave up.

Akira rode down with Shindou, the two of them cramped together in the backseat of Ichikawa's little car. The music was cranked up very loudly so the driver didn't have to listen to them yelling at each other. Shindou had brought a magnetic go board, and they played game after game on it, sweating profusely from the heat. When Shindou did pretty well in their second game, he acted so triumphant that it made Akira seriously consider strangling him.

Akira waited and stretched his legs out in Shindou's space while the other pro left the car to go to the bathroom stop. When Shindou came and sat back down, their thighs brushed together, the silky cotton of Shindou's trunks scraping against Akira's jeans shorts. It was weird. Akira suddenly felt a whole lot hotter.

Their arrival was a pretty grand event, with the old people around them cheering just as loud as Shindou did when they finally got there. Akira stood silently, wishing they would try not to attract so much attention. Shindou screeched in excitement upon the sight of white-yellow sand and gray-turquoise waves. Akira stared too, the salty air, clanking boardwalk, and far-away splashes of colorful umbrellas and people bringing back tinges of painfully distant memory, impressions from before he'd known what atari meant. The squawk of the seagulls and the up-sweeping breeze made Shindou grin, as if he belonged in such a place, but they made Akira feel an odd regret-hurt. He wished Shindou's stupid face wasn't so familiar and bright and clean.

The other members went off to the boardwalk go salon right away, but Shindou dragged Akira in the opposite direction. Akira stared past whirling hot tubs, pink adobe hotels, and hairy sand-encrusted legs, wishing for the cold, comforting presence of go instead of this confusing, positively teeming life. Shindou was perfectly a part of it. He seemed to think Akira was, too.

"Oh, man, I love the beach!" Shindou was nearly yelling, though he didn't seem to realize it. They'd fallen into a fast pace as they walked, and all the cerulean blue made Akira's eyes practically water, as if the light's reflection off it was bleeding into them. "Aw, man, Touya, what should we do first? I want to go swimming, and play volleyball, and eat ice cream and fries and cotton candy and pizza and Touya, what do you think?"

"I want to play go," Akira said, voice only slightly breathless. "You should have gotten one of your friends to do things like that with you."

"I thought-" Shindou said, then stopped, looking put off, but he couldn't be hurt. "Would it hurt just once to do something other than go?"

"With you, it would," said Akira, pretending to be calm and unfeeling, and regretting it.

"What's wrong with me!" Shindou yelled, stopping in his tracks. Clank. "Touya, do you even like me?"

Akira stopped, too. His heavy bag almost slipped off his sweaty fingers. "Of course," Akira said, "Of course I like you, Shindou."

Shindou stared at him, then his face broke into an ear-splitting grin. "Hey... Touya... you know..."

"Eh?"

"Are we friends?"

Akira was turning red. He let out a haughty "hmph" sound and deliberately turned his head. "Don't get too cocky."

Shindou laughed, and before Akira could manage to protest, they'd joined a group of teenagers in a beach volleyball game. Akira hadn't played volleyball since elementary school. You just had to knock the ball over the net, though, right?

Shindou covered for Akira when he missed a ball, and the smash scored a point in the process. The other boys and girls laughed. Shindou raised his hand for Akira to high five. Akira tentatively extended a hand back.

Hey... you know... Shindou? I feel like I could spend my life like this.


	2. With the Power of Those Eyes

_8. our own world_

Hikaru's father stared at him and scratched his head. Hikaru's mother stared at him and sniffled. Hikaru remembered bolting from Sai's match with Touya Meijin and really, really wanted to do the same.

Dinner, which regrettably enough seemed to have been ramen, smelled like it was burning on the stove where it had been left upon Hikaru's announcement. Hikaru wished for the nerve to point this out to his mother, clenching his right hand on his short leg. Dammit.

Hikaru was a pro now, and that meant he wouldn't be going back to school next year. He would never enter high school at all. This seemed to have upset his parents. Hikaru thought they were silly, frankly. He couldn't get why. He'd planning to go out with Waya to celebrate, but that was apparently out of the question now.

There were so many arguments he wanted to shout at them, but he couldn't. He hadn't thought of himself as a student for a year, after all. He'd defined himself and his life had revolved around being an insei. If his parents hadn't figured that out about him, it was their fault. And the ramen was burning.

Hikaru's mother groaned and hugged him to her chest, squeezing him painfully tight. The hard arm of her chair dug into his shoulder. He leaned in closer to her, and tried very hard to understand why they didn't.

"It's like we don't know you," Hikaru's father said.

All Hikaru's bewilderment went into his voice. "Mom, Dad, I'm good at this! And I love it! It's what I want to do with my life!"

"You're a child," his mother replied, equally bewildered. Hikaru, perched half on her lap, shifted to her other side. It was as if she wanted to propel him off her with her words.

"I can do this," Hikaru said, and looked over his shoulder at an anxious Sai, who at his request was remaining quiet. "I can succeed."

"Hikaru," his father said, "That's not the way the world works. You should live your life like we have."

"Can't you just leave me alone?" Hikaru asked, and his teeth clenched together. "I passed the pro exams, didn't I? I can take care of myself!"

"Don't take that tone with your parents."

"You don't get anything! If you keep being so stupid, I'll just leave!"

His mother and father stared at him from their comfortable chairs, the news still running on the TV. Hikaru looked the same as he had for years and years, the sports jerseys and the blonde streak they'd always disapproved of still determinedly staying put. His posture was no better, his manners hadn't improved, his grades were as abysmal as always, and he still hadn't learned to keep his room clean.

"Hikaru," his mother said, hands on the warm impression he'd left in the folds of her skirt.

Their faces looked dull to him. He was tired of seeing them everyday. Hikaru knew they loved him. It wasn't the kind of love he wanted. They didn't even know Sai. Touya, Hikaru thought, it's your fault. You're the reason I'm a stranger to my parents.

As Hikaru walked out, Sai let out a long sigh. "To get something, you lose something."

"What's wrong with wanting something?" Hikaru yelled once they were out of the house. It was still mid-afternoon and birds were still chirping as obliviously as ever. If he saw them, he would have thrown a rock at them.

"Is it bad to not want to do what everyone else does? Is it wrong to want this this much?"

"No," Sai said softly, and stopped behind Hikaru, who had apparently decided he needed to climb a tree.

Hikaru's bare knee scraped against a chip of bark, and a stringy layer of skin tore off. Hikaru inhaled the musky smell of wet oak, so thick, and it brought back memories of climbing this tree when he'd just been a kid, by himself, with other kids, with Mom, with Akari. He'd been able to get to the very top. Once, though, he'd fallen out. Mom had kissed his skinned knees and they had felt better.

"I want Touya," Hikaru said. "I want to see Touya."

"We could try to find him," Sai said.

"I'm glad you're here, Sai," Hikaru said. "I am glad I met you. I don't regret it."

"They'll come to understand. And there's nothing wrong with what you love."

The maple tree that folded around the oak was draped with leaves of bright burgundy. Their points and veins were just like a person's. "Why does the truth hurt?" Hikaru asked.

"So we'll have a reason to change it into something better."

"I want to see him, Sai, but I can't."

"It's okay, Hikaru. It's a beautiful day."

Hikaru hoped his parents wouldn't come out and find him. What a stupid thing to do, to hide from his parents in their own front yard. He imagined going off and playing Touya, as cool and geeky and stony as always, as serious and pretty. He imagined the descent of white and black stones, the red of the maple leaves conjuring the intricacies of a kifu, and was sure that if he played Touya he would forget all this, the two of them wrapped up in their own world. The sky behind the branches of the oak tree shone luminously white, his shorts shifting softly against his thighs, and he wondered how long it would take his skinned knees to heal.

_9. dash_

Hikaru watched his opponent carefully across the table. It was an honor to be recognized and challenged, especially in a ramen restaurant, of all places, but he was getting the feeling the old guy was trying to cheat. He looked kind of like a 70-year-old Mitani. The thought made Hikaru giggle.

"Hikaru!" Sai admonished him. "That's rude, Hikaru! Just because it was a horrible move doesn't give you the right to laugh at him!"

"I wasn't," Hikaru protested. "He just looks kind of like Mitani, doesn't he?"

"Maybe," Sai said, and stared at the man critically. Hikaru placed his stone.

"I resign," the man said, and left without a word. Hikaru stared after him.

"Huh," Hikaru said. "He actually didn't try to cheat."

"Hikaru, play me," Sai said. "Let's go home, and play!"

"Idiot," Hikaru grumbled. "I wanna finish my ramen first."

Hikaru pushed his face close to the bowl and began to shovel the noodles down his throat. He was in heaven, chicken-flavored heaven! It was even a great day outside. Nothing in the world like a good 10:00 ramen feast, Hikaru thought happily, ignoring Sai's forcible pouting. He may love go, but ramen was in a completely different league!

He heard pounding feet run past him. A bunch of kids were racing down the sidewalk. Looked like an endurance run, from their sweaty uniforms, the red-faced boys and girls thundering past as if stampeding. Hikaru grinned, glad he had school off, then caught sight of a familiar dark head at the end of the pack. He ran out of the restaurant.

"Hikaru?" Sai asked.

"Ssh," Hikaru hissed, forgetting he was the only one who could hear Sai. "Touya," he breathed.

"Ah," Sai nodded, understanding. "Touya."

"Touya," Hikaru whispered reverently, and he and Sai crept over behind a dumpster to watch the other boy. They peered out stealthily. Sure, this wasn't fittingfor a pro, but he hadn't played or even seen Touya in so long... his rival, his inspiration-

Who was currently having a lot of trouble breathing. Hikaru went "Hah?" as an exhausted-looking Touya slumped against the wall of the alley as if incapable of dragging himself another step forward. Sai half expected him to weakly appeal passerby for a pen and paper so he could compose his last poem.

"Wow," Hikaru blinked. "I guess he's really out of shape."

Touya was drenched with sweat, he noted, that strikingly pale skin soaking wet. Touya's usually perfect hair was even darker than usual with moisture, and he had to pull his shirt up to rub at the sweat on his stomach. "I _hate_ endurance runs," Hikaru distinctly heard Touya mutter to himself. Hikaru stared, aghast. Touya wasn't perfect!

"Sai!" Hikaru whined, "It's Touya! I wanna play him!"

"Are you really ready?" Sai hissed back, and Hikaru groaned, eyes still fixed on his tired rival in fascination. "Besides, he's got to finish what he's doing."

"Come on, Akira," Touya whispered to himself. "Can't let Shindou catch up to me..." With that, he had staggered to his feet and, gasping and unsteady, was dashing off again.

Hikaru's mouth dropped wide open. He watched Touya go, then turned to look at Sai. Then, in unison, they started to giggle together.

_11. gardenia_

Hikaru would sooner die than even give a hint of this to any of his guy friends, but practically since forever, his mother had been cultivating in him a rich appreciation for flowers. Each year, every time the sakura came out, the first day the trees at school bloomed, Hikaru would pick the most beautiful blossom he could find, bring it home, and stealthily lay it on her pillow. He looked forward to spring so he could hear her delighted, almost girlish gasp each time she saw the delicate pink flower on her bed, and he, listening outside, could feign nonchalant ignorance and pretend to be absorbed in homework or soccer or something. Sometimes she made him help with planting, around that time of year, and he minded doing so a lot less than he pretended.

This year, she had entrusted to him something she'd never been busy enough to risk before: the first flower of the spring, the gardenias. They were special to her in a way Hikaru found hard to understand in his old, distant mother, and he had no idea why they reminded her of her and Hikaru's father. When he'd been little, he'd ascribed a mythic significance to these white mysteries, as if because of their name, nothing else in the garden could flourish without their presence. He knew better now, and at 14, what he loved most about the task was how dirty he could get.

He remembered planting seeds last year with Akari, and remembered how inwardly, he'd seen her in the lightest of the Korean lilacs. He and Akari weren't likely ever to plant together again, he realized, and they would never stare in awe at the golden azaleas again. He looked instead at Sai, who sat there watching him with a quiet, beatific smile,like a rain-spattered, smooth blue hyacinth.

Touya walked up to Hikaru's house, as formally clad as ever, and let out a rather comic noise of surprise. Hikaru, crouched in the dirt with his hands full of seeds, turned and saw Touya, the sight of which pleased him immensely. "Hey, Touya!" Hikaru yelled. "Wanna play a game?"

The astonishment Touya bore at the state of Hikaru's appearance let Hikaru address him much more informally than usual. The proud boy barely noticed. Touya's cheeks were flushed from the heat and burgeoning humidity. Offering a game to Touya was only right, after all, since he was sure it was the reason the other boy had taken the trouble of coming here.

"What are you doing?" Touya finally asked, adorably stupefied. Hikaru, just to shock his rival even more, grabbed a handful of healthy, white-dotted dirt and smeared it across his shirt.

"Chores," Hikaru said. "Gardening."

"Oh," Touya replied faintly. Hikaru bet Touya hadn't even ever seen his own mother do it. The Touya family probably had servants for things like that.

"We can still play, though?" Hikaru said hopefully.

Touya looked down at him, eyes sweeping over Hikaru's muddy form in a way that said, why do I even acknowledge your existence?

"What are you, chicken?" Hikaru baited him.

Touya sat down so quickly he made a slight thud sound. "I'm in," Touya said. "Where's a board?"

Hikaru thought for a second, then realized he couldn't really afford to have his mother see him goofing off. There would go his ramen money! "Hey, Touya, let's play with seeds! I'll be these black ones." He cleared the ground and started drawing a grid with his bare fingers. "Star," he said, and placed one.

"It's not like you to start there," Touya said, staring at the soil with helpless interest.

"No," Hikaru said. "It's like you. Here are some white seeds."

"We're going to plant a kifu?" Touya asked softly.

"Hey," Hikaru said, "Gardenias are perennials. I think that means they'll last a long time. Besides, it'll drive my mom insane."

It was worth it later to be dazzled tenfold, by the dazzling sun drenching the sidewalks, the tent of green-yellow enfolding them, and by Touya's disheveledstate, face and hair clumped with sweat, hands up to his elbows stained in goopy mud, swears across his face sticky with chapstick and lemonade mix he'd joined Hikaru in licking out of the box. Hikaru stared and him and picked a seed off his face.

Touya stared down at himself, finally, with a combination of horror and helpless amusement. "I've never been this dirty in my entire life."

Of course. Touya would have spent his childhood indoors, by himself. Hikaru grinned. "Well, in that case, you'd better start making up for lost time!"

_18. "say ah..."_

Hikaru sighed, stretched out on his side, and yawned with all his might. Touya looked very impatient. Hikaru grinned. It was a good look on him.

"Will you play already?" Touya finally snapped, causing the people around them to turn and stare in amazement. Hikaru grinned.

"Touya," Hikaru sighed again, deliberately, "I told you, I'm tired." He deliberately yawned right in Touya's face. "It's real great you wanna play me, Touya, but you haven't just played a tournament."

Hikaru really was glad. He was happy. Touya's eyes were on him, making happy an understatement, insufficient. He'd won this year's Wakarajisen, but the thing that was more important was that Touya had come to watch him play.But Hikaru wouldn't be able to play that well at the moment- He'd won the Wakarajisen this year, just like Touya had won the last one, and Touya cared. But- he was tired. And not everything was about the stones on the board. Touya. Touya. Touya. A whole year, dammit. A whole year thinking of him. But... if Touya wanted to be his rival, he'd better get used to Hikaru!

He slammed his first stone down. Touya looked surprised, then responded. Someone shouted that Shindou and Touya were having a match. Touya looked excited in a way he hadn't looked on TV playing 5-dans. He responded with force.

Hikaru played a conservative diagonal on the first stone. Touya blinked, eyes narrowing, and took the adjacent corner. He had no idea what Shindou was doing.

Hikaru pretended to contemplate his next move very seriously, then slammed his third stone down diagonal to his second. "Alright! Three in a row! I win!"

Touya stared down at the board. Hikaru shrugged and grinned. "Shindou," Touya shrieked, "We're not playing tic-tac-toe!"

"Hmm... okay," Hikaru said, and looked at the board with mock absorption. He rearranged his stones into a smiley face, taking out a few extra black ones to complete his great work of postmodern art.

"Look, Touya, I'm happy to see you!"

Touya seemed clueless how to deal with this.Hikaru stuck his tongue out at him and reached for the board again. With the black stones, he spelled out, Touya iz kewl. Touya's perfectly manicured fingers flew to his mouth. Isumi looked scandalized, and was averting his eyes. Waya was laughing hysterically. No wonder. Waya must love seeing Touya Akira flustered.

Shindou pushed the letters together and surveyed the stones critically, then began to try, quite futilely to pile them into solid rows and columns. "I'mmmmmm... building a house," he began to sing. Waya choked.

"Shindou," Touya finally managed.

"Eh?" Hikaru said innocently, stopping in the process of marrying a white and black stone together to live in their new home.

Touya's face unexpectedly softened, taking on a different look. The corner of his mouth almost tilted. Hikaru stared.

Touya picked up one white stone and leaned towards a frozen Hikaru. He tilted his head and his hair swished over his shoulders. "Say ah," he said, and pushed his fingers past Hikaru's slightly parted lips. His hand shifted softly, and the white stone slipped off. Touya pulled his now-moistened hand out easily and wiped it on his own mouth, looking astonished at his own audacity for a second, then almost smirking. Hikaru gaped at him, gulped- and choked.

Waya and Isumi jumped to Hikaru's side and began to pound him on the back. Hikaru gasped and spit the stone out of his mouth, panting. Touya raised a perfect eyebrow at the other boy, whose mouth was still agape. "You-"

Don't be mad, Shindou," Touya said, voice perfectly polite.

"You-"Hikaru panted again.

"Don't give it if you can't take it, Shindou," Touya said, and breathed, "Idiot." Shindou stared up at the other boy, who rose to his feet.

Touya pressed down two white stones next to his first one. "Just make sure you don't like it too much."

_16. invincible; unrivaled_

Touya was in physics class, not paying attention. "He's playing go with himself," The boy who sat behind him whispered to another boy. None of the boys in his class liked him. They had used to, but they didn't anymore.

"Touya-kun, would you define frequency in terms of visible light for us?"

"Additive color."

When the bell rang, the girls left, as did the teacher, and the boys began to rummage under the desks for their gym uniforms. Akira reached behind himself and removed his blue suit from its neat bag, pushing off the off-white film aroundit. He stared down at his paper and realized he'd recreated an old game between him and his father, with a few crucial changes. Hair falling in his face, he leaned forward and carefully wrote in red and black on either side, Akira and Meijin. Noting comments to himself with his right hand, he tried to wriggle out of his uniform sleeve with his left. Biting his lip, he thought hard, and the clatter, classroom, and faces around him all faded into the background.

He shrugged on his suit jacket and fastened the top button carefully. His gold tie went on the ease of long practice. The color made him think of Shindou, and he realized with a start that it felt like he hadn't played Shindou in years. If according to Shindou, they were rivals, they shouldn't barely ever see each other. The blue-gray of the Kaiou gym uniforms filled his eyes as he looked around him, breathing in and out. It took him way too long to realize someone was talking to him.

"Why the hell are you wearing that?" Someone was prodding him, and the other boys in the class were staring. "Are you skipping gym? You're really bad at sports already."

Akira picked up his kifu and pushed it to his nose. Someone snatched it from him. Resignedly, he turned to the dark-haired boy who'd taken it. Everyone was done changing, and although there was less talking going on around him, some of the guys were laughing, looking straight at him.

"I need that," Akira said quietly. "I have a match, and I need to study it."

"No," the boy said. "You can't have it."

"Alright," Akira said after a second. "I remember what was on the paper anyway."

"Fag," the boy said, and Akira sighed, leaned down, and began to redo the kifu. He got out his kifu paper for that, which was in his go supplies, and couple guys walked up and began to rifle through them.

"Stop that," Akira snapped. He didn't want their greasy, dirty fingers touching his go things.

They ignored him. "You know, I really can't stand him," one of the boys said to another, obviously talking about Akira, and several of the other boys nodded in agreement. Some of the quieter boys started looking nervous.

"Yeah, he's so arrogant," a boy in the Kaiou go club said. "I really hate him."

Akira slung his school bag over his shoulder and walked to where his go bag was. A boy named Watanabe was looking through his schedule. "He's got a Meijin-something match today."

Akira walked over and wrenched his bag out of the boy's hands. He needed some time to think before him match.

"I hate you," a popular boy said.

"I hate you," another boy said.

"I hate you," another boy echoed with full feeling, and the other boys started stepping forward and voicing their grudges.

"You're an eyesore."

"I can't stand you."

"You should just leave."

"Why don't you just go and die?"

"Looking at you makes me sick."

"Bitch."

"I hate you."

"Slut."

"Dirty cocksucker."

"Why are you even going to high school if you're so fucking good at go?"

"I hate you."

Akira stood silently. The girls were already out, and were walking past their classroom, giggling. The radiation spectrum was still pulled over the board, and infrared was peeling off. He imagined himself fading into translucence and then transparence.

I guess they're right, he thought, and walked towards the door, hands full of go stones. He wished his entire world was just those. No, he'd miss Father and Mother, and watching Shindou play.

His breath scraped out his lungs as his head was wrenched back by more than one hand. It wasn't a completely unfamiliar feeling. He thought, "What's that? I don't want to be late." Then he heard a click, like someone chomping their gum, or popping a bubble of it, or someone making a mistake during seiichi. Snip.

A pair of scissors tore into Akira's scalp, and a sickly mass of silk jet hair crashed to the dirty linoleum. Akira was perfectly still, then his body jerked. Sweaty hands pushed his arms. He stepped on someone's foot.

He remembered his mother taking him home one day after a haircut and saying, "Oh, dear, doesn't Akira just look wonderful this way?"

The boys let him go. He say a ragged halo of torn black hair around his face reflected on the desk. "Now you look like a boy, at least," the boy with the scissors spat.

Akira stared at them, hand on his head disbelieving, then pushed his head high and spat in the boy's face. He walked out, catching himself in the window of the classroom. His eyes burned in their sockets with impotent rage and shame. He quickened his pace and concentrated on his hollow footsteps.

Akira stared at his opponent across the go board. His father was in China at the moment, but Shindou was watching. He was staring at Akira's hair, everyone was. Akira played his first move. He was going to rip Hiro 4-dan apart and make him cry right there. In Akira's place.

I hate you.

Well, of course.

Akira felt Shindou staring. Shindou looked like he thought everything was wrong. Star position. Nothing was wrong.

I'll play the perfect game. Akira reached up, touched his hair, and bit his tongue viciously to keep his stinging eyes from overflowing. I'm so glad Shindou's here. Because he's watching, I know I have to keep it together. So think whatever you want, it won't change a thing. I'm... invincible.

Hino's eyes widened in fright. Akira didn't touch his hair, just turned and looked at Shindou.

"Touya," Shindou said, "Don't be cruel."


	3. Sincerely: ever dream

_6. the space between dream and reality_

Shindou was the only person Akira had ever metwho actually didn't wear a suit to a title match. He may have, for once, actually turned up early to it, but he appeared to be fully prepared to defend the Honinbou title from Touya Meijin in jeans and a T-shirt. Akira found him right outside the match room, sitting next to the door. He was humming tunelessly, absently playing with some stones. The few reporters who'd arrived as of then were looking at him askance, for both his behavior and his appearance, Akira was sure. Then again, one could hardly expect any better from the notoriously clueless genius of the Go world.

Akira cleared his throat to let Shindou know he'd arrived. Shindou looked up at him with bright eyes, filled with dangerous challenge. Akira inhaled sharply, feeling a stab of excitement, and almost had to steady his breathing. The first title match he and Shindou would play against each other, he realized, and Shindou wasn't frightened at all. Shindou was just sitting there in his 5-for-go shirt and glaring up at Akira with confidence.

Akira walked over and stood next to him, taking his place behind the other man. Shindou's fist slapped ominously shut, clenching violently. Akira leaned down and put his hand over Shindou's, meeting that hot gaze with the same electricity.Shindou breathed out and licked his lips. Akira pulled his pale, sweaty hand back and felt the warmth of Shindou's flushed skin brush against it. He helped Shindou up and felt Shindou's muscles snap into readiness.

"About time you finally got here," Shindou said, and in his grown face, Akira could still see the careless kid who'd challenged him with such determination in a school tournament.

You'd better take this seriously," Akira shot back.

"Of course," Shindou said. "You'll wish I'd gone easy on you.

Your last match was horrible," Akira said calmly, his will pushing against Shindou's, fingers still lightly touching. "Your end game was a mess."

"Only you would say that," Shindou groaned. "Say that again when you lose to me!" he snapped.

Akira stared into Shindou's eyes, captivated by them as ever, and felt a thrill that only playing this man gave him. His stomach felt weak from Shindou's eyes being on him, fixed on only him. He wasn't afraid, either. "That's why," Akira said coolly, "I don't intend to lose,"

He walked away into the bathroom and stared at his reflection, ready to win the first of the seven games. He moved his right hand experimentally. In his mind, the sweaty trace of Shindou's warmth still lingered there. Akira looked into the mirror with a predator's smile. He smiled with the certainty that everything he desired was right within his grasp.

Akira's heart shot out of his throat as his eyes opened to the morning's half-light. He'd fallen asleep on the latest issue of Weekly Go. Shindou's record, a string of forfeits, was the first thing he sawHis eyes felt suddenly as if they'd been stung. It's not like there's anything like a promise, after all.

"What do I want?" Akira whispered.

_19. red_ _and 23. candy_

Akira waved goodbye to his mother and turned his back, too grown-up to actually watch her go. Father was out at a match that night, so he and his wife had already said their brief, understated goodbyes. Mother was going to visit her own family over the weekend, and she was dressed like she was a student again, the jeans she was wearing a rare sight in the Touya household. It was strange watching her kneel and bow to the threshold before she drove off. He could have been the parent and she the child.

He stood in his pajamas with his back to the doorand stared at the expanse of empty house. He breathed in and out, the morning air sweeping through and lightly touching his hands. He thought about the matches he'd played that month and shut the door, moving his shoes to a place no one could trip on them. He'd done that once and took pains never to do so again.

Akira waited a few minutes, which he spent standing in the kitchen, drinking clear spring water from a small bottle, thinking about go players before his mind fixed elsewhere- he remembered one of his students when he was younger, an older girl, flushing as she explained sex to him and he just stared at her uncomprehending. He thought of the heated glances he saw people give each other over go boards, which made him awkward. He tilted his head back, taking a long swig to finish off the cool, smooth liquid. He watched in the corner of his eye the stretch and curve of his neck reflected in the panes of glass.

He leaned up, yawned slowly, and his thoughts shot idly across thatsilken plain. He felt his face warm as a cool droplet traced down the sharpness of his mouth and landed in the delicate dulled blades of his collarbone He let his feet take him to the go room. His favorite board was withdrawn, the smooth, slender wood of the surface deceptively fragile as he lifted it to his chest. He walked to his own room and locked the door with a minuscule click.

Akira walked over to his computer and selected a particular playlist. A slow, languid tango began to saturate the perfectly sterile room, and the natural light shifted, leaf shadows intricately patterned across the paper doors outlining their contours in the most clever of inks. The go board was discarded on his futon and he crawled over to get under its support. There was a bit of fumbling before he pulled out a tiny, sticky box. Melting together in berry-like globs within its paper walls were chocolate-covered cherries, casting their own promising musky smell. Akira leaned back and breathed in to the rippling, prickly jumps of the Spanish guitar.

He knelt down and stretched his arms as far as they could go under the bed. They fell into something soft and enveloping, filling his hands with the sensation of having dragged his fingertips across the surface of a deep lake. He reached and pulled, and folds of silk brushed his sweaty palms. He pulled the kimono out, making the paper-thin sash move under his grip like human skin. It had belonged to his mother, but she'd never worn it or given it any mind, so it was unmarked, and his now.

He buried his face in the woundingly gentle material, closing his eyes and letting the liquid caress explore his mouth. His hair, pulled back from his face, left his neck small and naked. His nondescript house slippers were absently discarded. He felt his chest rise and fall beneath his fingertips as he unbuttoned his pajama top, sliding the green cotton off as he would slide a white stone across a board. The skin on the side of his hip was shockingly sensitive to the free air. The clarity of the solitude around him gave him confidence.

He sat down on his futon and pulled the kimono to him, folds trailing around each other as they slithered towards him. He twisted on his side and pushed his right arm into place. The sleeve was long, trailing past his soft knuckles to his sharply calloused fingertips. The rich red wrapped around his shoulders as he pulled the left sleeve on. Akira reached to draw the kimono around his body, savoring the intrusion of crimson-flavored ice.

Akira fell back and fiery dragons coiled around the muscles in his calves, releasing all control of his conscious thought. He fell back against the pillows as a game was placed on the board, realizing the furious ecstasy the music had abandoned itself to as his body's uncertain burning. He pushed the ancient, heavy wood top off the candy box and reached inside, hand withdrawing sticky with sugar and dark chocolate. Some of it almost dripped onto the kimono, so he pushed the sleeve off his left shoulder before raising his wet hand to his mouth and sinking his teeth into the tart, delicious fruit, the bittersweet pigments melting into his lungs. With the first attack of the game progressing, the sinful red poured stickily up his legs, he began to eat.

Akira stared at the lines of white and black, licking his lips clean, and played with the soft skin on the inside of his thighs. Licking the sharp teeth in the front of his mouth, staring at fireworks of genius shaped of stones, he tilted his head further back and imagined it against the shoulder of some ugly, trendy T-shirt as he buried his mouth into Shindou Hikaru's neck.

The silk taunted his stomach, vivid and bright against his dullness, and juice coated his mouth like saliva, stingingly wet. He had resigned at this point in the game, so the trail of stones abruptly stopped struggling, leaving a half-mounted stairway shoved into two dimensions. Akira imagined pushing his fingers into Shindou's head and reaching whatever mysteries crouched there, waiting to be released, as he was. He closed his eyes longingly, draped out raw and open, and felt like alcohol being finger-painted into a gaping, jagged wound. The impression of Shindou's face was carved behind his eyes with absolute surety, carelessly, brilliantly shining. If he could have dreamed, he would have liked to have done so in shades of gold.

You will never know me, Shindou, Akira thought. Never.

_22. cradle_

The sky was kind of ominous, with the dark clouds gathering in the right corner of the horizon, but that didn't stop the boys' lacrosse game. Akari knew from painful experience that few things could. Really, she thought, Hikaru shouldn't be goofing off like this when he has a match tomorrow. Well, he was right when he said he needed to blow off stress, but this game looked pretty stressful to her.

Hikaru scored a goal, and his team won, ending the game. He ran over to her, red-faced and laughing. "Did you see, Akari! I haven't lost my sports skills, after all!"

Akari looked funny with the look she had on her face. "Shouldn't you be practicing go, Hikaru?"

"You know I do that all the time," Hikaru said, tossing the ball up and down in his stick. "I need to take a break sometime, though." He could see the shadows of her memories of the time he'd tried to forget go creeping up on her face. She worried too much. He remembered his feelings at that time, too, but right now, there was nowhere else he'd rather be, the white sky, freshly-cut grass smell, and the stick sliding in his fingers. Atari, atari, he thought, and imagining winning a go game in this game's place.

"I'm building confidence," Hikaru said.

Akari tilted her head. "Huh," she said. "Neh, Hikaru, how do you keep the ball from falling out of your stick when you run?"

"It's a technique called cradling," Hikaru said. "You do it. I wouldn't expect a girl like you to know about it."

Akari rolled her eyes and stuck her tongue out at him. "Tell me how!" she demanded.

"I can't tell you," Hikaru said, blinking. "It's more instinct. You just do it."

"Why doesn't the ball fall?" Touya asked Hikaru, some time later. The lightly sprinkling rain made darker trails in his hair.

"Because I'm cradling it," Hikaru said.

"That's the way you move your stick back and forth?" Touya asked. Hikaru nodded. Touya looked puzzled.

"Never played lacrosse before?" Hikaru asked. Touya shook his head.

"Is it hard to learn to cradle?" Touya asked.

"No," Hikaru said. "You just have to practice."

Touya nodded. "I get it, you use your experience. You learn by instinct, right? Like go."

Hikaru blinked. "Yeah, exactly," he said, and looked up.

A slight smile lit up Touya's face. "I think I'll watch you a little first, though."

_26. if only I could make you mine_

"I resign," said Shindou, and left.

Akira nodded. "Thank you for the game," he said back, and gathered up the pieces. After cleaning, he walked over to the table with the score records and marked his win. He watched Shindou's back disappear out of the corner of his eye. Only someone who know Akira inordinately well would have noticed the harsh way his teeth dug into his bottom lip, and the slightest way his hands were shaking.

Akira checked again that he'd put away everything properly before making his way towards the door. Several go reporters he recognized were waiting for him there with notepads open. He could see they had questions waiting behind their teeth. He stopped before them and shifted his bag, held in front of him with tense white fingers. Adrenaline rushed through his brain and coiled in his arms and legs. His right hand spasmed.

"Touya-kun, could I have a word?" one asked.

Akira gave the man the best polite smile he could and fidgeted in his immaculate blue suit before them. "I really need to go home and get some rest. This is a lot later than I'm accused to. If you call me later, I'd be very happy to answer all of your questions."

Before they could protest, Akira squeezed past them and darted into the bathroom. A few steps and he'd shut himself in a stall and hurriedly pushed the lock into place. No one else was there. The sky outside the bathroom's blurry window really was a pearly black.

Akira let out a deep breath like a moan as he finally let himself sag against the artificial plastic walls. Bright colors swam across his vision as he groaned, legs weak beneath him. His teeth were gritted together, painfully tight. Akira's fingers shook as he fumbledto get the clasp on the front of his dress pants undone. He cursed, nearly cutting his finger on the zipper, before he got them open.

He reached inside his boxers, pushing them down, and grabbed himself roughly, making a strangled noise in his throat at the sensations it brought his achingly sensitive flesh. He was so hard it hurt, exquisitely hurt, thighs soaked wet with pre-cum. His fingernails almost dug into flesh as he started to pull desperately. Each stroke made low hisses erupt out of his throat, eyesshut firmly.

This wasn't the first time he'd had to do this after a match with Shindou, and he was used to the ragged feelings of guilt and humiliation, used to the faint taste of blood in his mouth from how tightly his teeth were clenched over his mouth to keep himself from making noise. Sparks of pleasure shot behind his eyes like blows hitting him and a small whimper escaped despite his efforts. His head fell back, and he called to mind fantasy after fantasy.

Pictures in the shape of thoughts and feelings gripped his mind- reaching over the board to grab Shindou and smash his lips to the other boy's- Shindou pushing his own shirt up with careless hands- tanned stomach and dark nipples- Shindou sprawled across Akira's bed, laughing- Shindou pushing a stone forward- Shindou yelling a challenge at him- running his hands through Shindou's bleached hair- Shindou marking a win in the record book- sucking on Shindou's ear- Shindou's hand in his- Shindou saying something unbearably stupid- Shindou on his knees naked with his ass raised, spreading himself apart with his hands, begging- Shindou's hand on him- Shindou jerking off- Shindou hugging him- Shindou turning a bad move into a good move- Shindou covered with go stones, sliding a cool black one across his own skin- Shindou licking salt off his fingers- Shindou grinning at him- Shindou tilting his neck towards Touya- Shindou's eyes- Shindou's mouth forming the words "I like you"-

Touya spit on his fingers and pushed his index finger into his entrance. He gasped at the sudden pain, but pushed the finger further in and felt brilliantly painful pleasure explode inside him. He whimpered a little as he pushed a second finger in, the ache sharp like a needle or a slash as he stretched himself open, writhing around his hands, and pushed back against them. That was all it took.

Touya sighed, finally, and opened his eyes. A deep breath, and he was ready to go back home.

I wonder if you would understand.


	4. Days

_ineluctable:_

Not to be avoided, evaded, or escaped; inevitable.

_10. #10_

It was really a horrible indignity, Hikaru thought. He was going undercover here, but he didn't even get a cool code name. He'd asked to be #5, like for go, right? But instead he'd ended up as #10 and some pretty boy wimp had gotten his number. Hikaru still couldn't make himself be entirely civil to the guy when he saw that big five on his chest. The undercover go player definitely should have gotten the 'go' jersey.

Hikaru had to be the only guy in the entire camp who actually liked the food. Having returned from China recently, he was so grateful for actual Japanese food that even the regurgitated gruel they fed the teenagers at camp was heavenly to him. Some of the underclassmen in their little cabins still pointed at him as he walked by. The story about the six bowls of lamb-flavored ramen must have spread that far. Hikaru, thankfully, did not consider this as compromising his position as a secret agent, though, so felt himself free to continue happily eating himself into oblivion, much to all of his new friends' disgust.

Hikaru, his #10 jersey still kind of stained from the morning's quite energizing curry, ran out onto the field with his cabin team for 11:00 scrimmages. A cloud had blissfully chosen to hover over their particular end of the woods, so the hearty Okinawa sun was for once not doing its best to burn them alive. The cool breeze and the spicy taste in his mouth sent extra exuberant power into the kick Hikaru launched the game with, and as he dove forward into the enemy defenders as heedlessly as he always did, he knew he'd made the right choice in taking a week here before the fifth-round Ouza matches.

Some big guy stole the ball, and Hikaru hauled his ass back to midfield, shouting at his own defenders. The ball shot back up in a few seconds, and Hikaru began to dribble back down the field. Heh, he thought. Hane, inverted hane, see you next week, big guy...

Hikaru collapsed onto the bench, gasping for breath. One of his friends tossed him his thermos, looking at him skeptically, and he chugged down the Gatorade for dear life. He really wasn't in shape for soccer anymoreIt was still fun, though, otherwise he wouldn't be going to sleep away camp for it. It was also fun because none of these guys knew he was a go pro. That skeptical teammate, who snickered at him and shoved him in the ribs, currently calling him a pussy, wasn't afraid of him at all.

Hi, Sai, Hikaru thought. It's a beautiful day. You would have loved it. I don't think you would have liked soccer much, though. It's kind of too rough for you.

Hikaru squinted at the tsumego book he was tearing through. He didn't really agree with their answer. He saw a way in the long run which could set up black for more territory than their solution. Not many people would have been able to see it, though. Sai would have, so would most upper dans, and Touya. Hikaru contemplated sending them a letter.

"Come on, Hikaru-kun, we're gonna go light fireworks!" Jounichi called from outside the log walls, and Hikaru jumped to his feet, stuffing the incriminating evidence of go in the pockets of his huge shorts. "I bet if we get them high enough, some girls from the camp across the river will come and see!"

Hikaru ran out, taking some in his hands. The actual feel of them made him nervous, though. "What if we burn something down?" he asked, and promptly had his ass kicked for being a wimp. Laughing, Hikaru followed them, in agreement with their philosophy of "to hell with that."

I wonder if Touya's wondering where I am, Hikaru thought. We normally run into each other around the go institute a lot the week before matches. I wonder if he's thinking about me. I wonder what he would think about this place, and about soccer, and about my friends. I wonder if I could ever get him to play soccer with me, or sit here with me like this, watching the colors explode.

Hikaru gasped at a sudden boom that caught him off guard, and as the green tendrils faded into smoke, he felt an irrational sense of horrible loneliness. I'll tell Touya about Sai someday, Hikaru told himself, for no reason in particular, and hugged his legs to his chest. He wondered if he could buy a copy of the new Weekly Go anywhere near here, because Touya was having some round of Meijin preliminaries that Hikaru hadn't gotten into.

I love this place, Hikaru realized. It's just that Touya's not here. If he was here, this would be perfect. Hikaru promised himself that he would take Touya to a festival like this sometime. They'd play a heated competitive game, it would slowly get dark to the accompaniment of the carefree cries of running children, and then, under the streaming summer fireworks, Hikaru would whisper his secret into Touya's ear.

_14. radio-cassette player_

A childish voice spoke fuzzily through the speakers, not stumbling over theadult worlds. The strips rolling inside the years-old tape still played the recorded mumblings faithfully, as years older, Touya Akira listened to himself again.

"I shouldn't have played atari there. Honestly, what was wrong with me?"

Tape after tape Akira had filled with his observations on games he'd played or seen. He'd started talking to the record button in 4th year grammar school to organize his thoughts. It had been a while since he'd listened to tapes this old. With the childish conviction that everyone devilishly wanted to spy on his thoughts, he'd hidden them away in some obscure place, and only recently found them by mistake. As old as the thoughts were, they brought the games clearly back into focus.

"I think he thought he was actually winning before we did seiichi. Maybe that explains the cocky way he played during the end-game. I'll pay attention to these things."

"I need to start being more willing to sacrifice pieces. In some situations, reluctance could cost me the game."

Akira laid out the old games to the instructions his high, clear voice had laid out on the radio-cassette player. He debated between two possible spots for the thirty-second move, then decided even if he'd been nine, he couldn't really have been stupid enough to play in the lower one. Satisfied, he took the better move, and let black's game deteriorate from there. So mediocre. Mediocrity was the worst insult Akira knew to give.

Ashiwara tried to get him to buy a CD player, because that was what was popular with people these days. All the kids his age certainly used them instead of the old-fashioned technology Akira was crouched over. But, Akira simply had replied, all his classical music was on tapes, and it would cost too much to replace them with CD recordings of the same things anyway.

Ashiwara replied that he wouldn't be buying a CD player to listen to classical music, and honestly, he'd said teasingly, sometimes it was hard to believe Akira was a kid. Even crusty Ogata had a CD player. He'd seen Shindou listening to his walkman, too. The fact, however, that Shindou had a walkman made Akira quite determined not to get one for himself.

Akira put in the prelude to Bach's third suite, a cello piece he liked. His father had been known to call Bach a robotic monkey after two or three cups of sake, but he'd written some things that Akira quite liked. The mechanical, mathematical nature of the compositions he'd put out pleased Akira very much. If his father was interested in passion, he should dig out some of mother's old torch songs or go to a theater to see a tragedy. Passion had no place in a go player's world, except in the context of the unshakable drive to win.

Akira remembered old games from grammar school and inwardly winced at them, bothered by the mistakes he'd made. He also cringed at the memory of the old him, that awkward, too-smart child who hadn't really internalized that he wasn't normal yet. Bach, however, declared all such embarrassing memories transient. Akira hummed along, despite the fact that he'd never really liked his voice, a common complaint in the Touya males, and waved his fingers in time to the cadence. Akira preferred to think cadence instead of beat because it put him in mind of a conductor.

Akira looked at a list of English vocabulary words and wrote a person each word reminded him of. He surveyed the word ineluctable, and, with annoyed reluctance, wrote down the characters Shindou Hikaru. Bach's cello made a bold statement that was rather violin-like in its pronounced quality, and Akira buzzed his lips together as he sighed, stretching out across his bed. I don't see any need for myself to change, Akira thought irritably, blowing hair out of his eyes.

Akira listened again to the tapes of his childhood and wondered where he would be five years distant again from that smug, shaky voice. Shindou, he thought, would be there. Was "ineluctability" a word? He rather doubted it.

Akira tapped out Bach's vigorous cadence on his soft comforter and wished he had learned to play the cello.

_27. overflow_

Hikaru and Touya were both 13, and while Hikaru waited at the bottom of the stairwell with Sai, Touya walked down slowly from the top, alone. Hikaru listened to his rival's slow descending footsteps, waiting for him to come closer. Touya couldn't have known that Hikaru was there staring up at him, since he was staring down at his own shoes so fixedly. It was as if he expected the steps to never end.

Touya didn't look happy, the harshness to his tread, almost like a stomp, attested to that, as did the unusually marked stiffness about his shoulders. He must not feel good about how he'd done in his first dan match, Hikaru decided. Hikaru wouldn't have liked losing to Zama-Ouza, either. The old man wasn't that good, was kind of slimy, was too cocky, and Hikaru knew Touya was better than him. Hikaru knew how Touya hated losing at all. Well, so did Hikaru.

Touya was sniffling. Hikaru realized Touya must kind of have a cold, but for a weird second, he thought his rival was actually crying. Hikaru felt all his excitement and anxiety inflate even further. Touya looked up and saw Hikaru when they only had a few steps remaining between them, which made the boy stop in place. He didn't seem to want to get any closer.

"What are you doing here, Shindou?" Touya asked, eyes hostile. The other boy intimidated him, but Hikaru took a step up towards Touya anyway. His hand trailed along the metal railing, only a foot away from where Touya's rested uncertainly.

"I saw your game," Hikaru said, and stopped on the step right below, which left Touya still taller than him. Hikaru looked up and his eagerness overrode his fear. Touya seemed weary and irritated and the smallest bit frightened.

"I-" Hikaru considered what to say. He didn't want to say something that would offend Touya again, but- "Touya, that was _awesome!"_

Touya blinked, and his hand shook. "Shindou?"

Hikaru looked up, then impulsively stepped up quickly and hugged Touya hard. "I'm really inspired now! I think you're incredible, Touya! You deserved to win, you know."

Touya stiffened in Shindou's arms, shocked beyond action. The way Hikaru hugged him was a head-on-shoulder type of thing, with bleached hair shoving itself snugly against Touya's neck. Hikaru met Touya's stunned eyes and smiled at him tentatively, letting him go but pulling him down the few remaining stairs. Sai was smiling in the corner, the bottom of his face behind his fan lit up by the bluish-green exit sign.

Touya seemed not to know what to say. "The snow is beautiful," Hikaru said softly. "Right?"

He looked at Touya, who, with his lips slightly parted and breath turning to frost in the air, looked for once like a child.

"You-" Touya said, words insufficient for something he wanted to say.

Hikaru, of course, didn't understand how much he'd hurt Touya before, how confused and stirred-up he made Touya, and how inconceivable Touya found this moment. He just spun around in the falling snowflakes as he ran out, laughing with sheer pleasure, and grinned at the other boy. Touya's cheeks were red in the chill. Hikaru gave Touya his umbrella.

"Take it," Hikaru said.

Touya stared down at it, looked up at Hikaru with both anger and amazement. Finally he just walked off down the street, neon lights framing his retreating figure. Hikaru watched, then looked up at a quiet Sai.

"Well," Sai said, smiling a little despite himself, "I'm not going to feel sorry for you if you get a cold, Hikaru!"

Hikaru just shook his head happily, staring off where Touya had gone.The street, lit by both streetlights and moonlight, was like the gateway to a whole new world, all his to explore and claim. Hikaru imagined Touya holding Hikaru's old black umbrella over his head as he waited for a taxi, thoughts contemplative as he shivered from the cold, and he hugged himself.

"Sai," Hikaru said, turning to his friend, "Isn't it just so beautiful?"

_30. kiss_

Shindou tried to run. Akira didn't even think before he was running after him. Students in the library turned to stare, Shindou's face full of mindless panic, Akira's with equally mindless determination. Hushed voices turned to shrieks and Akira pushed people out of the way to get to Shindou, who accidentally tripped a first year; Akira almost stepped on him before the kid could get back up.

"Come back here, Shindou!" Akira yelled, panting as he strained his legs, making them go faster. "What are you scared of?'

"Leave me alone!" Shindou yelled. "I don't want to play go anymore!"

Akira would have in other circumstances been aghast at the spectacle they were making of themselves, but he didn't mind anything if it helped him catch Shindou. Shindou shoved the door of a nearby stairwell open with his body, but it was an up staircase, and they were on the second floor- everyone else was going the other way, pushing him back. Akira shot forward and grabbed Shindou from behind, clamping his hand on Shindou's scrawny wrist so hard it was like he intended to weld them together. Shindou yelled something incoherent, and Akira dragged him down against the tide.

"Hey, Touya-"

Akira pushed Shindou into the chemistry room that doubled as headquarters for the go club. The beakers and dull surroundings which he'd spent so much time in were like an accusation to Shindou. Akira shoved him in, blocking the door with his body. The window they had talked through a year ago, the only other possible exit, was locked shut.

"Play a game with me," Akira demanded, feeling kind of panicked himself. Shindou had to!

"No!" Shindou yelled back. Neither of them saw that the members of the current go club had started to arrive. Akari looked as though she was the one being yelled at.

"Don't be such a coward!" Touya shouted back, face red with anger and frustration. Most people would have hardly recognized him. The only sounds were the wind and nearby happy voices.

Shindou closed his eyes, then- "Shut up!" His voice raised manically, and the pain in it could have sliced a person in two. "You have no idea what I've been through! You don't know anything about what I've lost!"

Mitani's mouth had fallen open. His hand were clenched into fists just like Akira's. It was hard to believe neither of the boys had seen them. The tension that hung in the air was like a bullet had just gone off.

Akira stared at Shindou, rendered speechless for seconds. He really didn't know anything about Shindou. He knew that. But he was here because he wanted to. He always had, and he still did.

"That doesn't matter," Akira said. "To win at something, you always have to lose something else." Shindou's mouth fell open, lips parting. Akira stepped forward. "Play a game with me," he demanded, and put his delicate hands on Shindou's trembling shoulders. The other boy looked scalded by the touch, as though Akira's eyes locking on his once again pierced right through his heart.

Akira kissed Shindou. He'd fantasized about it enough to know exactly how he wanted to do it. They were about the same height- Akira put one hand in Shindou's hair to steady him, and he wasn't frightened, spurred on the softness of the bleached strands between his fingers. He put his face up to Shindou's and pushed their lips together. At first he missed, and his lower lip locked on the very corner of Shindou's mouth, then he felt with his lips experimentally and found where he was going.

Shindou's lips were small and thin and soft and disbelieving and much warmer than he'd imagined. It felt good, really good, so he moved a little, shifting, and pushed his tongue against the entrance to Shindou's mouth, and sucked, hard. Shindou was frozen. Akira felt like he'd just won a hundred thousand games. His mouth opened against Shindou's, and he felt the sharp scraping of his teeth brushing Shindou's inner lip, soft and inviting, like an electric shock, so he pulled himself back as if pulling himself back to reality. He looked Shindou in the eye. Shindou's lips were slightly swollen and wet, a hot red.

"You-" Shindou breathed.

"Yeah," Akira said, voice taking on unfamiliar confidence. "I'm gay. But I'm also a lot better at go than you. While you loaf around feeling sorry for yourself, I'll be getting either further ahead of you. I'm not going to lose a single match from now on."

Shindou's face was shocked, the epitome of uncertainty. "I expect you to be at our next game," Akira said, and brushed past Shindou's pole-axed friends in a most spectacular exit. He looked down at the sleeves of his uniform to adjust them against his pale skin, trying to let out the heat that rose red under its awkward confines. He waited.

Shindou won his next game by a ridiculously staggering margin. Akira read the record of this and reached up to touch his lips.

_25. fence_

Hikaru wasn't too sure about the 20 oz worth of ice tea he'd bought. He didn't have tea much, didn't even really like it, but it had been the only thing besides water that hadn't been sold out in the school machine. He didn't really feel that great about actually drinking it. There was clearly some unidentifiable black stuff at the bottom of the bottle. When he tried to wipe it off, nothing changed, so it turned out the black stuff was actually inside the bottle. What was it, tea leaves or grinds or something? Toxic sludge?

Hikaru needed to see Touya, and so he went to Kaiou, which unlike his own school didn't have a professional day. Hikaru wasn't quite sure how he intended to find Touya, so he was lucky that Touya had gym and was outside. Hikaru, approaching the imposing academy from the back, had seen Touya in a group of blue and black-clad boys on the tennis courts.

A tall old man was barking directions at them. Hikaru crept up, grateful that it wasn't a sports practice. Then people might have thought he was a spy for another school, like in anime. He walked up to the green fence and grabbed it in his hands as he leaned forward against it, watching.

Hikaru shut the J-rock playing on his walkman off to concentrate on what was going on. They were having singles matches. Everyone was getting their opponents and starting. Touya ended up with some random boy, not looking happy or sad or anything in particular about what they were doing. Hikaru watched, biting his lip. He might end up having a game against Touya soon, he didn't know. They'd talk again then. No one noticed Hikaru.

Touya, to Hikaru's surprise, turned out to be strikingly dismal at tennis. His serve was weak, he couldn't aim or hit many different kinds of shots, he wasn't fast enough, and his coordination was embarrassingly hideous. Hikaru would have been laughing if Touya hadn't seemed completely unconcerned about all this. His opponent, winning in straight points, looked more upset than Touya did, who so clearly didn't care. Some girls ran by chasing a soccer ball, and Hikaru turned for a second to look for the origin of the noise, but quickly turned back Touya, not wanting to miss something potentially important.

If it wasn't for him, Hikaru thought, staring at the haughtily apathetic boy, I wouldn't be a go players. I'd be just like his opponent. But still- I mean, I'm just standing here outside the courts. I'm looking at him through a freaking fence. I wonder why he kissed me. I think Sai was gay, too. He looked like a girl, sort of.

The gym class ended, and the gym teacher called all the boys back, talked at them, then dismissed them. Some guys walked out in groups of friends; Touya, of course, didn't. Hikaru remembered the normal frustrated feeling he got when his gym teacher called them to end class- he wanted to play more, after all- and knew for Touya, it must be the exact opposite. Even though he didn't want Touya to notice he was there, he sort of did, too.

Touya pulled a kifu out from his bag and studied it as he walked back to his classroom. Hikaru had to suppress his urge to read it over Touya's shoulder. He felt like there was a force pulling his towards Touya, some kind of gravity. He tightened his hands on the wires of the fence as he watched Touya's back. Sai, Hikaru thought, I want to talk to you. What would you have said to me, right now?

Hikaru's iced tea didn't look remotely cold anymore. The black crud, however, was still floating at the bottom of the amber liquid. Advertisements in bright colors adorned the wrapper. Hikaru drank it, and winced. Well, if he drank enough iced tea, he'd get used to it eventually.


	5. Music is My Thing

_15. perfect blue_

Even though his first day of sixth grade hadn't been that bad, Touya Akira was still overjoyed when class ended. He couldn't run as fast as the others, but he did race out the doors of the school as soon as the bell rang. The subway station a block away got closer and closer with each hurried step Akira made towards it, his excitement and impatience growing with the target before him. He took the steps down two at a time, not quite athletic enough for three, but his eyes were fixed down toward the trains, huge and sleekly silver. The laminated white pass card in his hand slid through the slot easily, and the bars before him lifted, clearing his way to the path that would take him to a place he could play go.

School had always bored Shindou Hikaru, and from what he'd seen so far, sixth grade seemed to prove no exception. There were good parts, though, and those without exception came after class got out. Letting out a loud whoop, Hikaru raced down the one flight of stairs the school had and pushed open the red doors that led outside. Immediately he was part of the world that had been outside the window, and could feel every part of the hot sunshine and stirring breeze that he'd daydreamed about. Friends and classmates weren't too far ahead or behind, some heading to the athletic fields purposefully, others wandering there in groups, laughing brightly as they went. His red and black soccer ball, the one he'd gotten at camp, was waiting for him by the side of the far goal, just where he'd left it that morning. There weren't any hints yet of rain to come in the sky.

The familiar bell announced Akira's presence as he entered his father's salon. Ishikawa-san waved to him, and he shot her back his politest of smiles. There were a few of the normal regulars there, and Akira knew at least one would want a game from him. He went to his normal seat back in the corner to wait, and as he took a seat, dug his hand into a goban for the first time since that morning. An elderly man who knew Akira asked for a teaching game, and Akira felt contentment between his closed eyes, relishing the feeling of cool control the stones gave him. He agreed and invited his new student to sit down with his eyes, the dimness of the light around them masking the summer heat just outside the window and filling each room with its sterile comfort.

Hikaru insisted on playing offense, as he always did, which made Akari stick her tongue out at him. She was one of the other team's defenders, and Hikaru resolved to make a point to totally fake her out at least once. His friend Benjirou took the ball up to midfield and they waited a moment together while all the other players, outside the nexus, clomped through the grass to their respective positions. Then, with a familiar nudge of his head, Benjirou knocked the ball to Hikaru and sprinted forward into enemy territory, and the game started. Immediately the air filled with yells, and the other team was on him. He maybe should have passed back to his own middies... but he just wanted to sprint on forward, all the way right to the goal! Sweat already stinging his eyes, Hikaru took off.

"Thank you for the game," Akira said in the same tone of voice and intonation as he had used a hundred times before. He rubbed his small, long white fingers together, their tips brushing each other and spreading power between them.The man had technically been right to resign when he had, but Akira had felt like playing still. God, he was bored. His mind itched in its stillness. There weren't any clouds outside. If there had been, he could have likened their shapes to those on a board. Akira closed his eyes and wished for a change in the direction of the wind. Humming to himself, he looked up at the sky again. Its color was a...

"Hikaru, if you chug your water like that, you'll just throw it back up," one of his teammates called to him.

"Well," Hikaru said, "Maybe I just need to keep my strength up!"

"Shindou, we're up by one, you know."

"Not enough!" Hikaru declared, and looked up from his thermos. The sun fingerprinted his gaze with light. "There's no limit to the number of goals we can still score!"

_17. kHz and 7. superstar_

"Hey, Shindou, do you know what kilohertz are?"

"Waya, it's your stupid homework, not mine- Just like this is your stupid hat, not mine!"

"Shindou, you're wearing the hat."

"That's because Waya dared me to!"

"Come on, don't you do a mini-unit on physics in junior high? Help me out here!"

"Okay, okay! Geez! Um... let me think... it's a measure of period, right? So seconds per wave!"

Akira shook his head to himself and walked past the other pros without saying a word. If that was the intellectual level of the other teenagers in the go world, agreeing to this press event had been an even worse idea than he'd thought. "It's good publicity for go," Ashiwara had said. Akira, however, was coming to inwardly maintain that his love for go did not justify the torture of attending this human travesty charitably called a party at the ESPN zone. Really, there were few things in the world that made Akira feel more uncomfortable than air hockey or arcade racing games. At the moment, he couldn't really think of anything.

He found himself taking refuge in the boy's bathroom for about the eleventh time already that evening. He would have splashed water on his face if he'd been the kind of person who did that sort of thing. Instead, he just leaned against the sink and stared at his reflection ruefully. The j-pop that he could still faintly hear, filtered in from outside, was good enough incentive to spent the rest of the night hiding right there, if needed.

It took only a few minutes for Akira to become immune to the before considerable charms of the bathroom. Abandoning his promise to stay in the right area so the reporters could find him, he took the open spiral staircase in the center of the warehouse down a floor. Another wonderful aspect of this journey to note was that Akira was afraid of heights. There were a few chairs propped up next to a thankfully temporarily defunct drinks bar, so Akira took refuge there, the flickering pink and green neon letters of the bar's sign a welcome relief compared to the psychedelic disco ball they'd had over the main room.The cracked dark red plush of the stool under him supported his weight gracefully, and for a single, god-given moment, there was silence.

"Ay yi yi, ay yi yi..." Akira jerked in his chair. The faint sound of a young girl singing intruded upon the silence. He got to his feet and took a step towards the sound. It was coming from the machines in the far corner of the level.

"Ay yi yi..." Akira pushed his head past the edge of the black open doorway and saw someone on one of the dance machines. The first thing his eyes registered was a pair of bare feet on a colorful platform, bouncing on their balls already in anticipation of the beat.

"Where's my samurai?"

Arrows began flying up the screen, and Shindou started to move and stomp to the techno beat. Despite how quickly the different arrows reached the white ones at the top, Shindou's feet reached where they were supposed to be smoothly, his jumps automatic responses that stayed with the song perfectly. Akira vaguely remembered seeing a classmate play a dance game like this on a school trip a few years ago, but somehow it seemed very different to see Shindou, head bobbing with the music just like any teenager in the world, playing with a concentrated grin on his face.

Waya's hat turned out to be a horrible red knit cap with cat ears at the top. It covered most of Shindou's offensive multi-colored hair, the ears shaking as he moved. The stony-metallic black wall behind Shindou and the machine seemed to be jumping with the beat as well. Sweat showed through the back of Shindou's horrible orange shirt, orange sneakers and white socks discarded nearby. The screen flashed yellow perfect after perfect, and the number of pink combos being shown grew. Shindou stumbled and the screen flashed a blue boo. Cursing, he righted himself quickly and got back on beat again. Akira just watched. Shindou hadn't noticed him.

"Green, black, and blue making colors in the sky..."

Shindou laughed as he played, almost as if remembering something, not only his feet moving with the unpalatable techno but his shoulders wavingwith the exhilaration of fast, intense movement.Akira stood and watched, halted, as the pace of the song and the moves went by much too quickly for him to affect them. Shindou mouthed the last refrain and last words along with the girl who'd sung them, grinning in a way Akira could never remember having grinned.

"Damn, it's been a while," Shindou said to himself. The screen flashed "CLEARED" in yellow/blue letters. The noise of cheering faded quickly in and out as his results came up. He'd gotten an A. Akira cleared his throat, feeling hopelessly formal and distant.

"Shindou," he said.

Shindou jumped, a much less coordinated display than he'd given before, and nearly bashed his knee on the side of the machine. "T-Touya!" he shrieked, whirling around. "Touya, why can't you ever appear like a normal person! You're going to kill me like that!"

Akira didn't dignify that with a response. Shindou laughed nervously. "Er... well! Uh, sorry, did you want to play?" Akira blinked, unable to believe what he was hearing, and stared up at Shindou baffled. "I mean," Shindou said, "You can if you want. Go ahead. You've got more seniority anyway..." All of a sudden, the idea of Touya Akira playing this Dance Dance Revolution thing seemed to hit Shindou, and his eyes visibly widened. Akira watched him stick a hand over his mouth, obviously stifling a nice hearty laugh at the thought. Shindou's face was glistening with sweat and his cat ears were tilted jauntily askew.

"Maybe I do," Akira said stiffly. If Shindou could win at this game, he could. Shindou couldn't be better than him at something.

This time Shindou had to stifle an incredulous gasp. "You're kidding, right?"

"Shindou," Akira said, tilting his chin up and making his voice haughty and cool, "There's nothing you can beat me at."

Dark eyebrows shooting way up, Shindou regarded him skeptically, as if unable to believe he and his now-official rival were actually having this conversation, but then the prospect of competing with Touya got the better of his reserve. "Okay," Shindou said, leaning back against the wall with the more graceful, adult confidence that seemed to have sprung to life in him recently. He reached into one of the big pockets of his denim shorts and pulled out a bedragged piece of candy. "Show me your moves!" he challenged, unwrapping the big red lollipop and shoving it into his mouth. The sharp cherry flavor was a sudden, burning sweetness on his tongue.

Akira took a step onto the platform and its garish blue and pink arrows before realizing what he'd actually said he'd do. His blue suit bunched around him as he nervously pushed his feet together. Would Shindou be able to tell he'd never done this before? He felt like he'd just put himself in the electric chair, told the priest he didn't want last rites, and challenged the executioner to pull the switch.

There was a list of songs and their artists on the right side of the screen, tabs lain out like a wheel. Akira could see Shindou out of the corner of his right eye, sucking at his candy nonchalantly. "Well," Akira said, voice miraculously not cracking on him, "Is there a song you'd have me do?"

"Do Random Roulette," Shindou said. "That's what I did."

Akira didn't know how to work the controllers. He stepped on the x in the right corner, and that seemed to work as a selector. The game had started as a default on Roulette, so the wheel began to spin, changing to a blur of color. Akira tried very hard to conceal his surprise.His right foot in its tight black shoe tapped anxiously as the tabs spun and kept spinning. Finally, the wheel settled, the green selector locking on a single song- The Whistle Song.

"Select that," Shindou said. Akira had no choice but to do as he said. Normally he never followed orders, but a challenge was a challenge. He gingerly touched the x with his left foot, and the screen changed immediately with a whoosh to a screen with arrows like Akira had seen Shindou dancing to. There was a second of silence in which the game told him to get ready. He put his feet together in the center like the character on the screen had them and took a deep breath in. Shindou was licking the side of his lollipop absently, watching with improbable interest.

"_Blow my whistle, baby!_"

Whis-tle whistle whis-tle whis-tle whistle whis-tle. The yellow arrows flew out from the bottom as a hard synthetic beat started. Akira was supposed to step when the arrows hit the ones at the top, right? Caught off guard, though, he stumbled from side to side. There were so many coming without a rest between them in seconds- BOO! The screen went.

"_Blow my whistle, baby!_" Whis-tle whistle whis-tle whis-tle whistle whis-tle! ALMOST! The screen shouted at him. ALMOST! BOO! The sound of catcalls came from the game. Akira almost tripped.

"_Open up, put it in!" What? _Akira froze and tripped and fell into the screen, banging his head. He felt his entire face fill up with heat. The song was about- There was a brief stop like a boom in the drumbeat, then- Shindou chomped down on hislollipop, tilting his head at Akira as his teeth sunk into the hard candy.

"_Let's begin!" _A harried synthetic melody began behind the whistling, too, as the arrows started again, seeming to advance up even faster. Akira fell back onto the arrows, off-balance, and the bar at the top started to flash red. BOO! BOO! Shindou was licking the sweet red residue off the sides of his mouth. Whis-tle whis-tle. "_Blow it like you mean it, blow!" _

Akira felt the rest of his body, from his neck to his arms to his stomach, fill with hot, embarrassed goosebumps. He was panting already, and breathed out hard, the red at the top flashing more intently. Shindou jumped up onto the platform. The synthesized melody took over completely. "Hey!" Shindou said. "You're gonna fail in a second!"

"What?" Akira yelled back.

Shindou pushed Akira out off the way, onto the left dance-pad, the empty, unused one, and took over. It took him a second to start bouncing with the beat, caught in the middle of the song, but with the coordination Akira lacked, started to make the screen flash positive comments again, and the bar turn a bright, slithery green again. Akira stared, watching as Shindou, inches away from him, took over the dirty song.

"_L-l-let me hear you say-"_ Whoo whoo! Shindou took the jumps with a grin, lips and pink tongue flicking around the candy clenched between his front teeth with the sound of the whistle. "_Louder!" _And again, and- "_Is that what you call loud!" _Whoo whoo!

The demands of the singer kept on, Akira panting from his exertion and embarrassment, eyes fixed on Shindou with a look quite different than that of go. The beat rose in intensity, then- "_You need to bring the beat- back!"_

The whistling and synthesizer showed up again, and Shindou's head bobbed up and down again. They sped up and Shindou's shoulder and hips, which had already started to move with the music, started to toss and roll, keeping time and slashing across with complete, shameless surety. A final jump-

"_Blow my whistle, baby!"_

Shindou fell to a stop as the screen congratulated him. He turned away from the front to look at Akira at his side. He took the remnants of the lollipop out of his mouth and tossed it into a nearby trash can. "So!" Shindou said, face red, too, but from exertion and truly obscene satisfaction. "You can do anything better than me, huh?"

Akira's tongue flew across his suddenly dry lips, face to face with Shindou. "Y-your hat is stupid," Akira finally blurted, legs suddenly not quite strong enough to support him. "A-and you-you have no taste in clothes. And-and!" He realized, suddenly. "Kilohertz are a measure of frequency! They're waves _per _second! Like- for additive color in light. Or the pitch of music."

"Hah?" went Shindou, and Akira took that opportunity to make a quick if somewhat unsteady exit.

_29. the sound of waves_

When Akira looked behind, there was the far-off glow of the lights distantly lining the beach, shadowing the masses of ant-like people moving slowly along their ways, but from where he stood, he was completely alone. The sky was a dimmed blue above him, the color of the waves vividly before him, and a few lone gulls still let out their strikingly wailing cries.

The slight breeze stayed with him, enfolding itself around him, but the waves swayed in and out across his feet, walls of water that stretched like armies across hills showing white as they crashed and sprayed around him before retreating to begin again the same war dance. The remaining sheets of water sloshed in from both sides to reach him mercifully where he stood, nowhere near their far-away zenith. The traces of white spray that stroked his bare legs wrenched at him like homesickness.Dark blue ripples faded into the horizon, blocking from eyes whatever was beyond them. What am I, to this ocean, Akira thought? What am I compared to its inevitability and unchangingness? Where did I come from, and where am I going? The rows of light faded into the distance as well.

He wasn't cold, but he wrapped the trailing sleeves of his sweater around himself. What a tragic figure I must make, he said to himself. He looked behind at the ants and bright colors. Blowing his hair out of his face, he smiled to himself and kicked the heavy depths. Droplets jumped into the air next to him and shimmering, suspended for a second, shining, before they fell back into the unceasing flow of the tide.

Akira climbed back up the beach to where he'd left his sandals and bent down to pick them up. The sand was soft against his feet as he climbed the rest of the way to the boardwalk. He rubbed his feet against his legs to dry them, leaving grains of sand caught in the hairs on his shins as he stepped back into his shoes and walked back across the planks he'd come to this part of the beach on. He was close to the top part of the boardwalk, with the amusement parks and arcades vying with the five and ten stores for the rush of countless ants that awaited them. He pushed his head inside one of the arcades, saw two-tone hair, and walked in.

Shindou was playing DDR, like he always did at the beach arcades whenever there was a tournament at the water. Some other teenagers had gathered to watch him or wait for their turns. Akira joined them and tried to catch a glimpse of Shindou's eyes. Shindou claimed he did DDR to expel stress, but something about the techno song he'd ended up doing seemed to be vexing him. His back was set straight and hard, head slightly bent and not shaking to the music at all. He stomped on the arrows like they were his enemies.And you coming back to me is against the odds, and that's what I've got to face..."

"There's so much I need to say to say to you."

"You're the only one who really knew me at all... So take a look at me now, cause there's just an empty space, and there's nothing left here to remind me, just the memory of your face. Take a good look at me now, cause I'll still be standing here..."

Shindou jumped off the pad as soon as the song finished, not bothering to look at his score. Someone immediately took his place. "God, I hate that song," Akira heard Shindou say to himself.

Shindou!" Akira called.

"Hey, Touya," Shindou said. His face looked strange, like he was in a different place altogether, somewhere Akira couldn't see into.

Akira fell into step next to him. Shindou was in one of his funks again, it seemed. Akira wished to be the kind of person who would put his hand on Shindou's shoulder, but he wasn't. "D-don't worry," he finally managed, trying to catch Shindou's eyes.

Shindou looked up at him. "Huh? What?" he said, not having been listening. He smiled slightly. "Where were you all that time, Touya?"

"At the ocean," Akira said. "Shindou, don't worry."

"Touya-"Shindou began. Akira's eyes set. He pulled Shindou behind the arcade and kissed him. Shindou was still and quiet against him, eyes open and lips gentle under his.

"I'm here," Akira said. "And so are you. Neither of us are going to disappear."

Behind them, the sound of waves continued, crashing and sliding, crashing and sliding, and returning to crash and slide again.

_21. violence_

Somehow Akira had come to have Shindou Hikaru pinned to the wall of the room, had come to have his fingers dragging down Shindou's wrist to keep Shindou from hitting him, and he wasn't entirely sure how. Words and events were blurring before him, and everything was simply reduced to the anger on Shindou's face and the anger and fear he felt rushing and pounding through his veins. Shindou was shouting at him, and he could barely understand the words, but then Shindou kicked him square in the shin, pushing him away, and that Akira understood.

Shindou tried to hit him in the face, but only managed to land his fist into Akira's neck. Akira cried out, hissing, and fell back, scrambling away. Shindou's go board made a sickening cracking sound beneath his shoe, and the stones on it flew off, thumping against the carpet as they frantically scattered. Shindou tripped on the side of the bed as he lunged for Akira, and Akira, seeing weakness, took the chance to drive his foot into Shindou's back. Shindou cried out. Akira felt like there was a cloud of fire around his head, scrambling all his reason, and he slammed his foot there twice again.

Shindou screamed, and as his head arched back in pain, his light eyes cut into Akira's like his short nails were into his clenched fists. Why did his life have to be like this? Shindou made everything so complicated and it was Shindou's fault! Everything was Shindou's fault!

Akira was gasping as his foot fell back. Shindou collapsed face first onto the bed, moaning from pain. Akira froze, something catching him in place- guilt? Fear again? Adrenaline and the strain in his body were making him dizzy. Akira leaned over Shindou. Shindou got his fist into Akira's face this time.

The window outside, full of the flashing stars of the night, sailed past Akira's vision as he tripped. He looked up to see Shindou doing the same. They stared at each other, Akira's body crying out in protest at the pain going through his ankle. Shindou was breathing hard now, clutching his shoulder, his handsome face so flushed it was like it was overflowing with hostility and hate. Beneath his green T-shirt, sweaty and slightly askew, the bones of his collarbone, drenched with heat, looked startlingly delicate and fragile.

"I hate you," Akira said back to the accusing fury in Shindou's eyes, suddenly defensive and wary. He didn't feel like himself at all. His legs felt weak, making him feel unsteady.

Shindou didn't say anything to respond. He hadn't noticed that his go board was broken. His eyes kept on Akira's. Absurdly enough, the thought that came to Akira was that, unlike usual, Shindou didn't look completely untouchable. His hand shot out and closed around Shindou's wrist. Their faces were closer.

"Touya," Shindou said, and Akira felt a surge of something race up his spine at the sound, the sight of Shindou saying his name like that. His pulse was hurtling beneath his skin, almost making him shake. He could feel Shindou's was thundering right along with his. They were almost touching. Akira's body was tense with its lack of surety. He was afraid Shindou was going to hurt him.

Akira slowly bent his head down, eyes dropping from Shindou's. He felt strands of dark hair fall around his face. They brushed against the skin of Shindou's wrist. Akira's head fell onto the back of Shindou's hand. His lips opened and pressed a kiss to Shindou's skin, falling just beneath the roughness of Shindou's bruised knuckles. Shindou let out a slow breath, the coolness escaping out, feeling the trace of Akira's teeth just behind his lips. Akira felt like he could have just melded his head to Shindou's body, and with the force of the impact, could have stayed there, listening to the unsteady rhythm Shindou's breathing had.


End file.
